In
2007, Kevin L. Monday Jr. was convicted for the murder of Francisco
Green and received 64 years in prison. The incident ad been caught on
a 3-minute video recording shot by a street performer, and the footage
clearly showed Monday coolly and calculatingly firing 11 shots at Green
on a crowded Seattle, Washington, street corner. Thus, despite the reluctance
of witnesses to testify, it was an open-and-shut case.

But
now the Washington Supreme Court, in an 8-1 ruling, has overturned the
conviction and a lower court that upheld it – thus forcing a retrial
– claiming that the prosecutor used “racist” arguments.
What is the supposed problem? While questioning witnesses, veteran King
County deputy prosecutor James Konat cited a no-snitching street code
in the black community and made references to the “PO-leese.”
Writes Jennifer
Sullivan of The Washington Times:

During the trial,
Konat questioned witnesses, many of them black, about a purported
street "code" that he claimed prevented some from talking
to the police, according to the Supreme Court's majority opinion written
by Justice Tom Chambers. In questioning some witnesses, Konat made
references to the "PO-leese," the justices found.

During his closing
argument to jurors, Konat also said that while witnesses denied the
presence of such a code, "the code is black folk don't testify
against black folk. You don't snitch to the police….”

Question:
Can something be “racist” if it’s true? The street
code in question isn’t just “purported”; it is real.
And everyone, save the most sheltered and culturally naïve, knows
of its existence. But I guess that the truth, if dare uttered today,
will set criminals free.

The
lone dissenting justice, James M. Johnson, placed matters in perspective
in his dissent, writing:

[T]he majority
misconstrues what the prosecutor said and does not consider the context
of the statements, as our case law requires. This is what [sic] prosecutor
said:

[T]he only
thing that can explain . . . why witness after witness. . .is called
to this stand and flat out denies what cannot be denied on that
video is the code. And the code is black folk don’t testify
against black folk. You don’t snitch to police.

…The prosecutor’s
reference was made in the context of a month-long trial in which several
witnesses recanted earlier statements made to police and expressed
reluctance to testify. Indeed, the trial court noted, “[V]irtually
every lay witness has been very reticent to testify in this case,
and the memory of virtually every lay witness has had significant
holes in places where one would not expect….”

Johnson
also addresses the prosecutor’s pronunciation of the word “police,”
writing:

The
transcript has the prosecutor saying “po-leese” after
the prosecutor had difficulty interacting with [witness] Ms. Sykes
throughout her direct examination, and the prosecutor said “we’ll
use your term then” once before in an unfortunate effort to
elicit Ms. Sykes’ testimony. See VRP (May 22, 2007)
at 14 (using the word “arguing” instead of “confrontation”
in describing the surrounding events).

Johnson
lastly points out that the justices in the majority have cast long-standing
precedent to the winds:

[P]erhaps most
vexing, the majority fails to honestly apply the holding of tried,
tested, and controlling precedent. Appellate courts do not assess
“‘[t]he prejudicial effect of a prosecutor's
improper comments . . . by looking at the comments in isolation but
by placing the remarks ‘“in the context of the total argument,
the issues in the case, the evidence addressed in the argument, and
the instructions given to the jury.’’” State
v. Yates….

The majority
disregards the context of the total argument. The majority does not
look to the issues in the case. The majority does not look to the
evidence or to the instructions given to the jury. The majority looks
to several comments in isolation.

Let’s
be blunt: The majority has been brainwashed and is insane. Like so many
today, they have “racism” on the brain and will subordinate
everything to it.

This
brings us back to my earlier question: The Left does say that something
can be “racist” even if it’s true. And it is yet another
reason why the r-word has been rendered meaningless. A prerequisite
for “bigotry” or “prejudice” always was that
a given belief must not only be negative, but also untrue.
But “racism” was originated by the Left; it is their word
and they define it. And in their relativistic fantasy-world –
in which their feelings have usurped morality’s position as the
yardstick for judging behavior – “racism’s”
dictates trump all: It matters not if something is true, only whether
it’s “racist.” This is why, in places such as Canada,
we will hear nonsense about how the truth is no defense against a hate-speech
charge.

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And
this is why I avoid using the word “racism”: The side that
defines the vocabulary of a debate wins the debate. Thus, when we use
the Lexicon of the Left – originated on university campuses and
spread through the media – we have fallen into a Newspeak trap.
The Right needs to watch its collective tongue and maintain the integrity
of our language. Why walk to the beat of the civilization destroyers’
drummer? If the left wants to manipulate the language, we should let
them descend into a parallel universe of linguistic insanity without
us.

As
for the subordination of Truth to agendas, to do it is to confess error.
For a man who cannot stand on Truth is one who is standing behind a
lie. It is a compulsion born of a very dark spirit, indeed.

Selwyn Duke is a writer, columnist and public
speaker whose work has been published widely online and in print, on
both the local and national levels. He has been featured on the Rush
Limbaugh Show and has been a regular guest on the award-winning Michael
Savage Show. His work has appeared in Pat Buchanan's magazine, The American
Conservative, and he writes regularly for The New American, and Christian
Music Perspective.